Waste firm donates nearly 20 wheelie bins of food to Portsmouth food bank

KIND-HEARTED staff at a waste management firm have donated bins of food to people in need in the city.
The team at Biffa's Portsmouth depot, which handed out almost 20 wheelie bins of food to Kings Road Church food bank. The team at Biffa's Portsmouth depot, which handed out almost 20 wheelie bins of food to Kings Road Church food bank.
The team at Biffa's Portsmouth depot, which handed out almost 20 wheelie bins of food to Kings Road Church food bank.

Portsmouth’s Biffa depot has donated almost 20 wheelie bins full of food to the Kings Road Church food bank.

The firm received thank you cards, biscuits, drinks and claps from residents to say thank you for the work they are still doing during the current time.

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Driver and loader, Roy ‘Roy the Boy’ Johnson and Damien ‘Click’ Clark had the idea to give back to the community after receiving such a friendly response from residents and so encouraged people around the city to donate dry or canned food to be donated to the food bank.

Depot manager Chris Smith challenged the pair to fill one 240 litre wheelie bin with food to be donated and by the end of the week the two had filled eight bins.

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Chris said: ‘Within about 72 hours the Facebook post was shared about 200 times and made it into some of the local help groups.

‘Everyone was on board with it, including the residents and it just went from there really.’

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Last week they donated 14 bins weighing a total of 700kg and have donated a further four earlier this week.

Chris said: ‘I couldn’t be prouder of them for how much they have achieved and all of the stuff they have been involved with. They are a credit to the city.

‘It’s quite a unique city in that all people always support each other and the residents have been unbelievable, leaving things out.

‘A lot of the credit has to go to the residents as well.’

Some of the donations included dry and canned food such as crisps and soup, as well as essential items such as nappies and sanitary products, which residents said they went out to buy specifically for the donations.

Residents left the donations on top of their wheelie bins for when they got collected, with notes addressed to ‘Roy the Boy’ and ‘Click’ as the two are known.

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